Even in the key 14-49 advertising demographic, RTL had to settle for bronze, with 10.6 percent market share, against ZDF's 13.4 percent and 14.1 percent for ARD.

It was a similar tale across the commercial nets, though none were as hard hit as RTL, whose broad audience demographic has the most overlap with the public channels. But both Pro7 and Sat.1, Germany's next two largest commercial broadcasters, each dropped a point of audience share compared to June 2013, with just 7.2 percent and 4.6 percent of the nation's viewers watching Sat.1 and Pro7, respectively, last month.

With close to 30 million Germans catching World Cup matches where the national side is playing – and some 10 million plus watching when they aren't – it's no surprise that the commercial nets are suffering. Indeed, the audience drop was expected and commercial broadcasters pretty much surrendered in advance and did not attempt to fight the soccer with high-profile counter-programming.

Instead, the networks seem to be satisfied to wait until World Cup fever breaks, at the latest after the tournament final July 13.